Puto, Fides, Spes
by gojackets77
Summary: Sugar Ray, the only woman on Trench's team, is released for no apparent reason. Determined to find an explaination to this, Sugar ends up on a while ride that takes her back to her past. And of course, she runs into the Expendables on the way.
1. Prologue

**Puto, Fides, Spes**

Prologue 

The Best

Red, orange, yellow. Fire—burning heat everywhere. Black—death everywhere. Bullets scream through the air with powerful shrieks as my feet pounded as hard as they could against the muddy ground. Shrieks of metal on metal bite at my ears, mixing with the thrumming of my heart as it pounds in my eardrums. A thin blade flew centimeters to the right of my head, embedding itself deep into the trunk of a tree.

I was getting closer and closer to the crashing waves of the ocean. I needed to be in the water before the shit hit the fan. Bullets whirred past me as I sprinted as fast as I could to the menacing rocks and waves.

_Almost there…_

BAM! Something suddenly tore into my upper right arm, through and through eating away at my flesh and muscle. A groan of pain is silenced in my throat as I keep on through the pain. I'd been shot so many times that the pain was normal, but it still burned me like a mother fucker.

Once my boots landed in the icy water, I practically dove into the freezing liquid death of the ocean. I'd gotten a few feet off the shore before I hit the button on the remote that was clutched tight in my left hand. As I swam towards my unseen contact in the ocean, half of the town I was just in went up in flames.

After that, there was complete and utter silence. No more shrieks of metal, no more screams of bullets. Only the silence of death.

A smirk crossed my face as I swam towards my unseen contact in the watery depths of the ocean. Sure, I was swimming in freezing water with a bullet hole in my arm, but that was what I did. That _is _what I do. And I sure as hell was the best at it.


	2. Time Off

Chapter 1

"Time Off"

"This is fucking bull shit!" I yelled as I hummed a chair at the far wall, sending wood shattering across the room.

"Calm down, Sugar!" Trench ordered, standing at full height over me.

Trench was much taller than me, and he knew that, deep down, he intimidated me when he looked down at me like that. Of course, that didn't stop me from cursing and throwing things at him.

"Fuck that!" I growled. "Fuck _you_!"

"Don't yell at me, Sugar. I'm not releasing you from the team, so stop taking things out of context. I'm just giving you time off."

_"Che cazzo stai dicendo? _Don't expect me to buy that bullshit, Trench!"

"It's not bullshit. I'm giving you some time off; why don't you actually use it? Go out, go visit your sister, hell, do something besides kill people. You need to work your arm back to use anyway, and while you're at it, get your knee checked out."

"Oh, stop telling me what to do, asshole. You just released me; you don't have the right to tell me what to do."

"I didn't release you!"

"Really? Then how long will I have 'time off', then?"

He sighed. My glare hardened. I knew that Trench's whole "time off" thing really was bullshit then. He was releasing me from the team with no apparent rational reasoning behind it. I didn't understand it. I always completed my jobs, normally without complications. I hadn't had a mission compromised in at least fifteen years. This didn't make sense.

"Fine, _bastardo,_ don't answer me," I snapped. "I'm outta' here."

I grabbed my coat from the couch and left the crappy motel room. I stormed through the dimly lit streets of the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans. I stomped passed drug dealers and hookers and annoying kids in gangs. The whole time, I was mulling over what had just happened. I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that I'd just been released from the team. There was no reason at all for Trench to have done that.

A deep, Southern voice pulled me out of my thoughts. "'Aye, baby, why don't ya' come over here?"

A warm, calloused hand rested on my shoulder. I spun around me pressed the barrel of my gun to his temple. He was in shock.

"Look, motherfucker, I'm not in the mood to shoot some stupid ass kid like you, so get the fuck outta' my way," I sneered. "Understood?"

He furiously nodded his head. I shoved him away from me and continued walking.

That night, I ended up at a bar in the French Quarter. I was pissed off at Trench and the team, so I was going to drink my anger away with vodka. I threw back another shot of liquid fire as a thought came to me (I always did my best drinking when I was drunk). I decided then to leave New Orleans, to leave Louisiana completely. I would leave, work on my own, and find out why Trench released me from the team. In my drunken state, I let out a cheer of approval at my own great plan, thus causing everyone around me to stare. I didn't care, though, I was determined to get to the bottom of my "time off".

o0o

Exactly one month had passed since Trench released me. In that time, I'd erased every trace of my existence. I'd cleaned out my apartment and abandoned it. I even got rid of any contact I'd had in the prior year. I hadn't heard from Trench or the rest of the team since then, either.

I ended up leaving New Orleans for Los Angeles. I moved into a shady part of the city because it was easier to stay on the down low in a shadier area. I still went to the gym every day, though, always working the muscle back up in my arm. I still had loads of money left from my last job, so I didn't need to worry about working yet. I just laid low for a while, and no one who saw me double thought anything of it.

Of course, they didn't see the scars that I'd hidden with makeup. They didn't see the gun I always had with me. They didn't see the array of weapons that I kept cleaned and loaded in my apartment. Had they seen any of this, they would stay the hell away from me as most people who knew me did.

I spent most of my time contemplating my life. Even though I was pissed off at Trench, I knew some of the things he'd said were true. I knew that I needed to visit my sister; I knew that my knee was fucked up again; and I knew that I should take a break from work till I got better. I didn't want to believe that he was right, but I knew that he was.

Yeah, it didn't make sense to me, either.

One night, as I was leaving the gym, I got a phone call from my sister. My sister, who hadn't spoken to me in a year in a half. Worried, I instantly answered the call.

"Lacy, what's wrong?" I asked. _There has to be something wrong. She wouldn't have called unless something was wrong. _

"Hey, Ray, I know I haven't talked to you in…well a really long time, but I need your advice," her once-familiar voice said in rush.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, you remember hearing about Lee, right? I never see him anymore, and he's always gone, and I don't know what to do about him. He always just up and leaves all the time, Ray-Ray…"

I sighed. Of course she wanted to ask about boyfriend trouble. She'd never told me about Lee, which led me to believe that they weren't together a year and a half ago. It was apparent that he was cheating on my little sister, though.

"What are you getting at, Lacy?" I asked, slightly angry at both her and this Lee asshole.

"He's been gone for months now, and I have no clue when he'll be back. So, well…I kind of have a date tonight, and I have this really bad feeling about it."

Again, I sighed. "You're worried because you're cheating on him?"

"It doesn't feel right. My date is waiting in the living room right now, and I'm really worried. I don't know what to do, Ray."

"Alright, you still live in L.A., right?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I remember how to get there; I'll be at your place in five minutes to talk."

"You're in L.A.? Since when?"

"It doesn't matter, Lacy!" I took a deep breath to calm myself. "I'm sorry. Look, I'll explain it when I see you, okay?"

I jumped onto my motorcycle and sped off in the direction of Lacy's house. I hadn't been there in five years, but my memory was great. Just as I'd promised, I was pulling in front of Lacy's house five minutes later. There was a white motorcycle parked on the curb, and on the front of it was a logo I knew too well. It was a simple gruesome-looking skull with the word _Expendable _written in a scroll underneath. It was the logo of the Expendables, the team of mercenaries who had been my rivals when I was still with Trench.

I soon found the owner of the bike as a tall, bald man stormed off the porch and back towards his bike. I glared at him as I hopped off my bike.

"Lacy, go inside and I'll be there in a minute," I called up to my sister. I turned to the Expendable with my arms crossed. "You, fucking stay right here."

"Ray, what are you—?" Lacy began.

"Just go with it, Lacy!"

I was still facing this Expendable bastard, so I knew Lacy had listened to me when I heard the door swing shut. The Expendable was looking at me in anger and confusion.

"Stay the fuck away from my sister," I demanded, my jaw tight.

"Says the woman who hasn't spoken to her little sister in almost two years," he mocked. He had a deep English accent, which made his voice seem more mocking to me.

"No, says the woman who knows that you haven't been _cheating on_ my little sister, you've been _working_!" I punctuated the last word by smacking the skull head that was painted on his motorcycle.

His face fell.

"Do you know how much fucking danger you put her in?" I snapped. "Fuck, I'd have thought Ross would keep you in line, but apparently not."

Though slightly in shock, he was also pissed that I was talking bad about his leader. I think the fact that I was right shocked him even more, though.

"She wasn't in danger," he said, his voice stern. "She doesn't know."

"What—she doesn't know that you fucking kill people for a living? Yeah, 'cause _everyone_ will believe that!"

"No one would come looking for her!" He was letting his emotions take over his rational thinking.

"You don't know that!" I took a deep breath to calm myself; getting into a fight with an Expendable wasn't the best way to keep on the down low. "Just stay away from her, alright?"

"Or what?"

"Or I swear to God you'll fucking regret it. Now get the fuck outta here, asshole."

As I turned towards the house, I put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it, blowing out the first puff of smoke as I heard the Expendable's motorcycle speed down the street. Lacy opened the door then, a glare on her face. She yanked my cigarette out my mouth and threw it in the lawn.

"Y'know, I wasn't done smoking that," I stated, an eyebrow cocked as I smirked down at my little sister.

"Where the hell have you been, Raven?" she demanded.

Oh fuck. I knew there was a reason I hadn't spoken to her in so long. She asked too many fucking questions.

**AN- so I saw the movie opening night and i dont really remember where it's set. if anyone wants to correct me, thats great, but i think i'll stick with LA anyway. by the way, if you havent figured it out yet, this takes place in the begining of the movie.**

**jess**


	3. Questions

Chapter 2

Questions 

"Well, are you going to answer me?" Lacy demanded.

She was standing in the middle of her living room, arms crossed. She had that same pissed off look as she had the last time I saw her three years before. Her eyebrows were scrunched up in anger, her eyes a hard mask, her lips pressed into a tight line. She wasn't frightening when she was pissed like most people I knew were. Instead, Lacy just looked mad, like she was only portraying the emotion, not as though she were _feeling _it. She always did that, even when we were kids.

"Are you going to kick out your date?" I mocked as I took a seat on the sofa. I stretched my legs out so that my feet were resting on the coffee table.

She let out an exaggerated sigh and stormed out of the room. Her annoying little date left the house almost instantly. I took her time out of the room to light myself another cigarette, so when she reentered, I was smoking like I would if I were in my own house. That was something about me that always pissed her off, my lack of manners.

"Don't smoke in my house," she snapped, once again yanking away my cigarette. She dropped it into a half-empty glass of water.

"Well, you're still as annoying as you were three years ago," I grumbled.

"Would you stop with your shit and tell me why you're in L.A.?"

"I moved here. Ain't that simple?"

"Why?"

"I got fired. Why'd you decide to call me after two years?"

"Because I thought for once my older sister would actually give a crap about me!"

I rose to my feet, angry. "Hey, I fucking care about you! Don't you dare say that I don't care about you."

"Then where have you been the past three years?"

I sighed. "I've been busy. Get over it. What do you want to talk about? 'Cause I need a shower."

"Busy? You've been too busy to talk to me!"

"I guess this is what you wanna' talk about. Yes, Lacy, I've been _busy_. Anything else ya' wanna' know?"

"Why are you such a bitch?"

I snickered. "Why are you?"

"Ugh, you're so hard to deal with! Why can't you just sit down and have a regular conversation?"

"This _is _a regular conversation for us, Lacy. Why can't you just realize that?"

"Ugh!"

I rolled my eyes. "Nothing else to say?"

"What did you tell Lee outside?"

Wow. That was a jump of conversation. "That's his name?"

"Answer my question, Raven."

I shrugged. "I just gave him a talk about how to treat my little sister. Real simple."

She sighed. "You're so vague."

I didn't answer her, just sat back down on the sofa and started humming _Annie _like I always did when I got aggravated or bored.

"What happened to you?" she asked. Her voice was softer this time. I stopped humming and stared up at her.

"What do you mean?" I snapped. My voice wasn't as angry, though.

"You never used to be like this. When we were kids, you were so…nice."

"Yeah, well, shit happens, kid. That's life."

"But what happened to _you_?"

"Why do you care now? You didn't give a crap sixteen years ago." I'd joined Trench's team sixteen years prior, and that's when my already crappy relationship with Lacy completely shattered.

"I just want to know if you're okay. You're limping again. Is your knee acting up again?"

When I was a teenager, I'd injured my knee playing soccer. I'd tore two ligaments, broken my patella, fractured my tibia, and I've been stuck with tendonitis ever since then. From time to time, my injury would act up, and it just so happened that it began to act up after my last job.

"I'm fine," I lied. "I just ran too much at the gym today."

"Good. You don't need to get hurt again. How often do you go running, though? You know you're not supposed to run too much."

"Fuck, Lacy, stop acting like my mother."

"Just leave, Raven. You're just going to sit there and bitch, so leave."

"Well, Lacy, it was great seeing you again, really," I replied sarcastically. "Maybe we can do this again in another three years."

"Yeah, I hope you have a great time in L.A."

"Aw, your sarcasm flatters me."

I rose from the sofa and placed a soft kiss on the top of her head. I left the house quickly before anything else could happen.

After I'd gotten home and showered that night, I cleaned my guns like I did most nights. My knee was aching and my arm was burning, so I was lying on the couch to clean my weapons. While I was cleaning my handgun, I got a phone call. It was a number I didn't know, so I answered it as most normal, non-mercenaries would answer the phone.

"Hello?" I asked, not giving enough mind to the call to stop cleaning my gun.

"Is this Sugar Ray?" an unfamiliar male voice asked.

_What the fuck? Who is this?_ "I think you have the wrong number."

"Really? Well, if you know Sugar, tell her I can get her a job."

_A job wouldn't be bad, but this is an offer from someone I've never met. _"Wow, that sounds just _so _exciting."

"If she'd rather not work, tell her she should think about getting a tattoo."

_Alright, this is just fucking confusing now. _"Alright, that's just _great_. Bye now."

I flipped my phone closed and dropped it onto the couch. I gently set down my gun.

_Hmm…that _was_ weird._

I spent the rest of the night trying to decipher this code that was so clearly meant for me. Anyone who knew that I needed work knew that Trench released me, and only a handful of people could have known that. The tattoo part was what confused me. Sure, I had tons of tattoos, but the reason for someone to tell me to get a new one confused me to no end. This confused me almost more than Trench releasing me did.

There had to be an explanation to this, just like there had to be an explanation to Trench releasing me. I eventually came to the conclusion that whoever had called me knew all the details of my being released. I also concluded that this mystery man had work to offer, which of course was obvious; this led me to believe that I could find work at a tattoo parlor—somewhere, somehow.

I spent an hour looking up nearby tattoo parlors. There were only two that were close to me. One was a really shady place named Tool's and the other was a more upscale tattoo parlor named XTC. I extended my search to downtown L.A., but that became way too broad a search. I decided that the next day, I would go out and find the tattoo parlor that mystery man was talking about.

**AN- by the way, "puto, fides, spes" means "believe, trust, hope" in latin. also, the italian phrase in the last chapter (where Sugar is yelling at trench) means "what the hell are you talking about?" sorry these chapters are so short, but trust me they'll get longer. **

**jess**


	4. LEE: Nonexistant

Chapter 3

LEE: Nonexistent

That bird was fucking crazy. She was absolutely insane. She was a fucking bitch.

Who the hell _was_ she, anyway?

_Ray, _I reminded myself. _Raven Jones, Lacy's older, basically nonexistent sister._

Whenever I actually saw Lacy, she would talk about Raven. She wanted to act like it never bothered her, but the fact of the matter was that Lacy _needed _a mother figure, which should have been Raven's job when their mother died. Sure, Lacy hated her sister, but in some weird fucked up way, she missed Raven. I didn't know the entire history between them, but I knew enough to know that the two of them rarely spoke and definitely never saw one another.

This is why I didn't understand what the fuck Raven was doing at Lacy's house tonight. It was a completely random visit. From what Lacy had told me, they hadn't seen one another in three years; so why did her bitchy older sister have to show up the night I do?

I pulled my motorcycle onto the side of the road and dialed Yang's number on my phone. He answered on the second ring, as he always did. That little fucker could get predictable sometimes.

"What's up, Christmas?" Yang asked, his voice slightly aggravated.

"I need you to look someone up for me," I snapped.

"What's got you so damn pissed off?"

"Nothing. Just look someone up for me."

"Fine, fine. Does this someone have a name?"

"Raven Jones. Don't fuck this up, Yang. I want everything on this bitch—age, job, where she lives, who she fucks, _everything. _Now—"

"Wait, you have me doing background checks on a _woman_? Fuck, man, that's just weird. Did some hooker screw you over or something?"

"_YANG! _This is serious; she knows who we are."

"We? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'll explain when you give me my information, so get to it."

I ended the call, shoving my phone roughly back into my pocket. I was pulling my bike into Tool's shop minutes later, just as pissed off as I was when I left Lacy's. Ross was already there—of course. Tool was filling another letter on his tattoo.

"Ross, we may have a problem," I said immediately, pulling my helmet off/

"What's wrong?" he asked, glancing up at me.

"Some bird knows who we are."

"What are you talking about?"

"Lacy's sister knows who we are."

"I thought she was out of the picture."

"She was—"

My phone started vibrating then, interrupting my insane-sounding explanation. The screen illuminated Yang's named, so I put the phone on speaker when I flipped it open.

"That was fast, Yang," I commented, the question apparent in my voice: _Why _was that so fast?

"Yeah, Christmas, you gave me the wrong name," he answered.

"No, I didn't. Raven Jones, that's what you looked up, right?"

"Raven Jones doesn't exist."

My eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "Look up Lacy Jones."

"Why am I doing a background check on your girlfriend?"

"Ugh, she's not my girlfriend! Just do it."

"Christmas, you've lost it," Ross commented.

"Yeah, brother, what happened?" Tool asked.

I decided to ignore them rather than to answer. "Yang, did you do it?" I snapped.

"Yup. Lacy Marie Jones, born—"

"I don't care about that. Does she have any siblings?"

"Only one half sister, Elizabeth R. Creed"

The _R _had to stand for _Raven_. "That has to be her; search her."

"What did this chick do to you?" Tool asked lazily as he finished filling another letter on Ross's tattoo.

"She knows who we are, and she knows what we _do_. Ross, she knows you're in charge."

"Yang, what d'you got on this woman?" Ross asked, suddenly interested.

The other end of the line was silent for a few seconds, which was odd for Yang. Fuck me, that wasn't a good sign.

"Nothing," Yang replied. His voice was solemn and full of confusion. "There is absolutely no information on this woman. No date of birth, no _place_ of birth, no job, no residency. Absolutely _nothing_. Aside from the connection to your girlfriend, this woman does not exist."

"She's one'a us," Tool spoke up.

"Tool could be right. If she knows about us, she has to be a mercenary."

"This is fucking crazy," I grumbled.

"Christmas, what exactly happened?" Ross asked.

"I was leaving Lacy's house when this bitch pulls up on a motorcycle all pissed-off-looking. Then she tells Lacy to go inside and starts fucking bitching at me about how I shouldn't have put Lacy in danger and that you—" I looked to Ross—"should have kept me in line. And then she had the nerve to _threaten_ me!"

"Well, did she have any tats? If she was on a team, she'd have the tat," Tool commented.

"She was covered in them! I couldn't make out if one was a team."

"What did she say about us?" Ross asked suddenly.

"Just that we kill people for a living. She doesn't seem to like us too much, though."

"Of course she won't. She's probably on another team; she should hate us."

"Yeah, we take her work," Yang put in.

"I don't think she's working right now," I thought aloud. "She hasn't seen her sister in three years, probably because of work. Now she shows up out of the blue, and Lacy sure as hell seemed shocked when that bitch pulled up. Something's not right."

"Maybe she retired?"

I shook my head, even though Yang couldn't see it. "No, she's not old enough to retire. She can't be older than forty."

"She was released," Ross murmured. "She had to have been released."

"This just doesn't seem right. She didn't come across as the type to fuck up enough to be released."

"Yeah, you know her so well," Tool mocked.

"Look, guys, I'll come by tomorrow night to figure all this out," Yang said. "I _was _busy before James Bond called me all pissed off."

"Yang, what could you possibly have been doing?" Ross asked.

"I have a life, you know!"

"Yeah, yeah, calm down, Jackie Chan," I mocked.

I flipped the phone closed with an aggravated sigh.

"So, what happened with you and the chick?" Tool asked.

"Tool, don't you have a woman upstairs?" Ross reminded him.

"Oh, shit!"

Once Tool hurried back upstairs, Ross turned to me. I shook my head.

"She's not your type anyway, Christmas," he teased.

I chuckled. That's the way Ross was; we didn't really sit down and have deep conversations. Instead, we made fun of each other. "Shut up."

"Besides, if her sister's crazy, she probably is too."

I just shook my head mockingly and ran a hand over my head.

"Rough night?" Ross guessed.

"You have no idea," I grumbled.

I went to the back room where Tool kept a mini fridge full of beer. Unfortunately, Tool and the rest of the team only drank American beer.

"Ross, why don't you ever buy good beer?" I called back to him as I reluctantly grabbed a bottle of Coors Light by the neck. "This shit's too fucking sweet."

"Beer's not sweet; you're just crazy," he called back.

I downed a sip of the too-sweet beer and grimaced. "Nope, this is definitely too sweet. You fucking Americans put _sugar _in your beer. Crazy asses."

He chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, I know. _You just want to go home to have a pint of decent beer_." He used his worst impression of an Englishman as he quoted me.

I leaned against the door frame and couldn't help but roll my eyes at him. "You're crazy, you know that?"

"At least I don't get background checks on my ex's."

"That's low, ya' bloody bastard."

"Sure was, you damn Brit."

I let out a short bark of laughter and chugged down the rest of my ice cold, crappy American beer.

"So, tomorrow night, we'll all meet here to talk about this Raven chick." Ross said, serious again.

I nodded. "Yeah, we need to sort this shit out," I grumbled.

"Don't go off hating this girl just because her sister dumped you."

"I'm not. I hate her because she threatened me."

"Sure, that's why. Just don't let her get to you."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Good. Now go get me one of those shitty American beers."

I snickered. "Get it yourself."

He walked past me and towards the mini fridge, grumbled to himself something about "crazy Brits". I chuckled.

"Crazy Yankee!" I called.

"Yeah, whatever!" he called back.

"Are you ever going to sleep?"

"Never do."

He reentered the room then, sipping his beer.

"So, what did this Raven chick look like?" Ross asked. Damn, he was fucking curious. Then again, I guess it made sense, seeing as this chick didn't seem to exist.

"She was a few inches shorter than me, kind of tan, covered in tattoos. She had really short hair. Oh, and she smokes," I described the woman from memory.

"Notice anything else? That could be about half the people in L.A."

"Yeah, she has a limp."

"Not very helpful, Christmas."

"It was dark and I was pissed; I can't really notice much then."

"Alright, well, go home. It's late and you had a long day."

He had no idea.


	5. Stories

Chapter 4:

Stories

I'd always liked motorcycles. Even when I was in high school, I'd loved hopping on the back of a hot guy's Harley. I just loved the feeling of freedom that filled me as I flew down the road. There was something about the feeling of flying that turned me on.

This was why I'd woken up at six in the morning to go riding my Harley through Los Angeles. I left wearing a pair of dark wash jeans, a black vest, and my old, worn combat boots. The sun was rising as I zoomed past Venice Beach. I took in the sights of the city during some of my ride, but I spent the majority of time thinking, as I normally did. I thought about the usual things I'd thought about for the prior month: Trench and the team. Even though I wanted to hate them, I couldn't get that nagging voice in the back of my head that said, "Are they okay?" the shut up. Sure, they were bastards for releasing me, but they had been my family for sixteen years of my life; I loved them. I also thought about my being released, which was constantly on my mind since the event itself. I considered taking on new jobs and about the possible job which I might acquire from Tool's tattoo shop (I still didn't understand this part).

Amidst all this confusion, I thought of my kid sister. The kid sister I hadn't seen in three years and hadn't spoken to in two years. The kid sister who used to argue with me constantly when we were kids. For some insanely bazaar reason, I missed that damn little girl who threw gummy bears at me when I was ten and busted my soccer ball when I was a teenager. This almost caused me to drive off the road, I was so lost in my thoughts. I actually _missed_ the crazy bitch who stole my doorknob and then my boyfriend when I was fourteen.

"What the fuck is wrong with me?" I scoffed, voicing my thoughts.

Thinking of Lacy led me to think of her fucking Expendable now-ex-boyfriend, which led me to think of Barney Ross. Barney was older than me by far, and he was the tell-tale leader of the Expendables. I had only met him once when I had just started working with Trench. Apparently, the two had recently split teams before I joined with Trench, and when I'd met Barney, he was cursing out Trench and the rest of the team. Once he'd noticed me, he looked me dead in the eye and said, "Leave this team; leave this shit. You're too young to deal with Trench's shit." With that, Barney Ross had stormed away from the rest of us, leaving me confused and awestruck.

Trench had always liked us to keep tabs on the Expendables. Because of the rivalry between Trench and Barney, a rivalry was created between the Expendables and us. We never asked questions when Trench would tells us to check in on what the Expendables were doing. He never made us look up names, just jobs the team was taking on at the time. Some members of the team quit because of this, but it never bothered me, probably because he'd made me do it since I joined the team. Trench's weird ways were all I knew when it came to working on a team.

After spending hours driving around and thinking, I decided to find Tool's. I had no idea where this place was, seeing as I didn't know L.A. at all. It took me half an hour of driving down random streets to find the place. It looked like a garage, but the large, unlit neon light that read _Tool's_ let me know I was at the right place. The garage door was closed, so I pulled my bike into the small, alley-like side road to the left of the shop. I knocked on the door, not knowing what to expect when it swung open.

The door didn't swing open right away, though. Instead, a voice called out from the other side of it, "Yeah?"

My eyebrows scrunched up in confusion. "I heard I could get a tattoo here?" I called back.

That's when the door quickly swung open. A man with wild, shoulder length hair was standing behind it. He had on a pair of black framed glasses. He wore a red and white plaid shirt, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and a pair of jeans. A cowboy hat hung around his neck. I could make out some tattoos, and he was decked out in leather and chains. He was smiling down at me.

"Hi, I'm Tool," he said. His voice was mellow and carefree; he reminded me of a badass hippie.

"You can call me Sugar," I said, returning his smile.

"Well, darlin', that's a fine bike you got; why don't you bring it around front and I'll let you in?"

I nodded in agreement and drove back to the front of the shop. When I got there, the garage door was open, revealing the inside of the little shop. I knew that it used to be a mechanics shop, because of the plain cement floor and overall look of the place. It looked like a pretty decent tattoo parlor, but I could tell that it wasn't a very popular shop. I didn't want to get a crappy tat, but there was something about this Tool guy that told me he didn't half ass his work.

"So, Sugar, what can I do for you?" he asked once I parked my bike in the shop.

"It's kinda' hard to explain," I said, trying to think of a way to get my idea across without sounding like an idiot. "Ok, y'know how there's constellations, right? Well, it's gonna' start off as a sorta' messy—well, no, not messy—constellation of a wolf. Then it'll go up and it'll turn more and more into a wolf as it keeps going, and it's gonna end as this really fierce looking wolf. But it's not just gonna' be a buncha' different wolves; it's gonna' look like a wolf sorta'…in motion? Like it's running. Does that make sense at all?"

Tool laughed. "I think I get it. Where do you want it at?"

"I want it to start at my left hip and end up at the right side of my chest."

"Alright, you can go sit down, and I'll be there in a minute."

There was only one seat, so I sat down in it and got comfortable. Tool stood in front of me less than a minute later, a Sharpie in his now glove-clad hands. He was looking at me expectantly, so I unbuttoned my vest and dropped it on the floor.

"Sketch away," I said, leaning back comfortably in the chair.

He started right away, drawing wolves across my torso.

"So, what brought up this tattoo?" he asked as he started the second wolf.

"I used to have a beautiful hand-painted dream catcher when I was a kid that had something like this on it," I explained. "Now just seemed the right time to get it done."

He nodded. "How about your other tats? What's with the 77 over your heart?"

I chuckled. "You're the first person to get that it's over my heart. Everyone else just thinks I got his number tatted on my tit. But, anyway, it was my old best friend's high school football number."

He snickered. "That's sweet. He ever get around to pro-ball?"

"Nah, just college ball. He wanted to be a doctor, not a football player."

He nodded. "What's that up on your chest—Latin?"

"Yeah, means _never look back_." I whistled. "Damn, it seems like forever ago when I got that."

"Was that your first?"

"Yup. Got it the day I turned eighteen."

"I remember my first tat, got it when I was sixteen. Up on my shoulder. It's big hell dog, growling and snarling and all."

I snickered. "Sounds lovely."

"Not at all. It's a really ugly mother fucker."

We both laughed at that.

"So, what's the story behind all these tats?" he asked.

He was now up to the second to last wolf, which came up under the swell of my breast. The soft tip of the Sharpie tickled my skin, causing me to suck in a breath before answering him.

"Too many damn stories to tell, not nearly enough time," I answered, keeping pretty vague for him to fill in the blanks.

"I got time," he answered.

"Got any beer?"

He finished whatever part of the drawing he was on before leaving to a back room of the shop. He returned with a open bottle of beer. I downed a sip before he started drawing again.

"There's a big dream catcher on my back," I began. "That was my second tat. It's a fucking beauty."

"Why'd you get it?" he asked.

"I can't sleep at night; I think too much, I guess. I figured that if I had a dream catcher all the time, then I'd be able to sleep. That fucking didn't work, though, but shit, it was worth a try, right?"

"Everything takes time, honey."

I nodded. He pulled away then, a smile on his face.

"Go look in the mirror before I start," he told me. He looked extremely proud of himself as I rose from the chair and turned to the mirror.

Somehow, Tool knew exactly what I was trying to tell him, because the drawing looked exactly as I'd envisioned it. The last wolf was right on the top of my right breast, exactly how I'd wanted.

_Fuck, even if I don't get a job out of this, I'll be pretty damn happy._

"Alright, Tool, have at it," I told him as I sat back down, sipping the beer as I did so. "A really pale blue color, okay? Kinda' white-ish/blue."

"Sure thing, Sugar," he said as he mixed the colors for my tattoo.

In a few minutes, he was bringing the needle onto my skin. A slight flinch overcame my body on instinct. I was used to the sting of a tattoo, but instinct always told me to run from the needle. I never did, never _wanted_ to; I just couldn't stop myself from flinching. It didn't hurt, especially since I was used to getting shot.

"Relax, darlin'," he cooed as he continued on with the tat.

"Instinct," I mumbled.

He nodded. "You were right, by the way, that dream catcher is _gorgeous_."

"Thanks."

"So, what happened to your arm?"

Fuck. Of course he'd be able to see a healing bullet wound. Anyone with eyes could see the mutilated fucking flesh that was my right arm.

"Some bastard in the project shot me," I lied, feeling my muscles tense as the memory what had actually happened went through my mind.

"Must've been recent," he commented.

"Yeah."

I left it at that, and he knew not to ask about it anymore. We sat in silence for a while, the only sound, his tattoo gun working at my flesh.

"So, got anymore tats under those jeans?" Tool asked, breaking the silence.

I chuckled. "Yeah, but I don't think you'll be seeing 'em anytime soon," I teased.

"Aw, Sugar, that's low."

"Oh, c'mon, Tool, ya' already got to touch my tits; be happy with that."

He laughed. "You're a crazy bitch, huh?"

"Fuck yeah."

He shook his head. "You're not too bad, darlin'."

"Thanks, Tool, I think I'll take that as a compliment."

"I wouldn't, he sleeps with a different woman every night," a slightly familiar voice grumbled.

I jumped, startled, and looked up to see none other than Barney Ross walking out of the elevator. He was shirtless, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

So _that_ was why that freaky mystery caller told me to get a tattoo. The Expendables—or at least their leader—were close to Tool. This could hook me up with contacts and even a job, that is if the Expendables ever possibly considered letting me on the team. Sure, that was a long shot, but it could be a win-win situation. I could give them information on what was going on in the world of other mercenaries, and they could help me find out why I got released. No big deal, right?

"Damn, brother, I'm fucking working," Tool teased.

Barney just shook his head at the older man. He studied my face for a minute, and I'd thought that he recognized me, but he just shrugged it off and went into the back room. He returned with a bottle of beer, as Tool had done earlier.

"So, how'd you hear about his crazy ass?" Barney grumbled as he drank his beer.

"Oh, a girl I know told me he did tattoos," I explained, saying the first thing I thought of.

"It was Jenna, huh?" Tool asked. I could hear the smirk in his voice. "She was just amazed by all this."

I snickered. "Yup, that's Jenna for ya'."

He nodded in agreement. "Yeah, sure is. Anyway, that actually was a compliment, by the way."

"Sure it was."

"It sure was, Sugar."

"You can't call her by her name, Tool?" Barney mocked.

"That _is _her name, thank you very much," he mocked back.

"Her name's Sugar? Yeah, _sure_ it is. Well, I gotta' go meet Yang at the bar; we'll be back in a few hours."

"No problem, brother."

Barney left through the garage door on the other motorcycle in the shop. He sped off down the street, the sound of the engine still ringing in my ears as the garage door fell shut.

"Sorry about him," Tool apologized. "He gets bitchy 'cause he never sleeps."

I chuckled. "Sounds familiar," I snickered. "It's fine."

It took Tool half an hour to finish my tattoo. Once he was done, I stood to stretch and look at the new work of art that stained my skin. It was absolutely beautiful. Tool completely understood the concept of the tattoo looking like a running wolf. The color was perfect, too. It was amazing.

"Wow, Tool, this is fucking beautiful," I gasped in awe.

"Thank you, darlin'; I try," he replied, smiling at me.

He covered my tattoo before handing me my vest off the floor. I pulled it back on.

"Thanks so much," I said.

In Tool's mind, I was thanking him for the tattoo. In my mind, I was thanking him both for the tattoo and for the fact that he'd unknowingly shown me where the Expendables were and how I could possibly find work again.

I had a shit-eating grin on my face as I left the shop.

**AN- sorry if the description of the tat was confusing, it's rather hard to explain. here's the link, the wolves tattoo is in the sky in the dreamcatcher. ?prod=103139001**

**jess**


	6. Shots

Chapter 5

Shots

Alice Cooper's voice hummed dully in the hole in the wall bar I was at. I'd been there for hours; I went there directly from Tool's shop. The only reason I was at this shitty, underground bar was because I recognized Barney's motorcycle parked in front of it. When I entered the bar, he wasn't inside, so I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer.

Like I said, I always did my best thinking when I was drunk, so I spent those hours at the bar thinking of a plan. I knew that Barney and the Expendables were meeting at Tool's that night. I needed to be at that meeting. As I threw back a shot of vodka, an idea came to me. I would stumble into Tool's shop, pretending to be drunk as fuck, and then I would listen in on the meeting. The bald Expendable asshole Lacy was with—Lee?—would probably notice me, though, so I'd just have to hope that I could get to Tool's before he did. I was about to order my last shot of vodka when I noticed Barney sit at the bar, a few seats down from me. I smirked and downed the shot.

I "stumbled" over to Barney, acting drunker than I really was (I was only a bit tipsy; couldn't drink on the job). I plopped into the stool next to him and threw my arm around his shoulders.

"You're the guy from Tool's, huh?" I slurred, putting on a huge grin.

"Yeah, you're 'Sugar', right?" he asked.

I nodded vigorously. He turned to the bar tender.

"How long has she been here?" Barney whispered, thinking that my "drunkiness" would keep me from hearing them.

"Hours," the bar tender answered. "She's just been downing shots for hours."

Barney turned back to me. "How'd you get here, Sugar?" he asked.

"I drove!" I answered as I would had I been drunk, screaming obnoxiously.

"Of course you did. Okay, well where do you live? I'll get you a taxi back home."

"Um, well, what had happened was, I just moved here—"

"And you don't know how to get there."

"Exactly!"

He sat for a moment in contemplation before throwing some money on the bar and wrapping an arm around my waist. I leaned most of my weight on him as he "helped" me out of the bar. He hopped on his bike, so I climbed on behind, wrapping my arms around his middle. I rested my cheek lazily against his back.

"You can stay at Tool's tonight," he informed me as he pulled on his helmet.

"What about my baby?" I asked, looking over to my bike.

"You're baby?"

"My bike!"

"I'll come back with Tool and one of us can bring it back."

I nodded. There was no way in hell I was gonna' leave my baby at some shitty bar.

In a few minutes, I was at Tool's tattoo shop for the second time that day. Tool was in the shop, along with a little Asian man and a big guy with cauliflower ears. I hobbled off the bike and towards Tool. He snickered when he saw me, but once he smelled alcohol and saw the look on Barney's face, his expression fell. He wrapped his arms around my waist once I got to him.

"What happened?" Tool asked, though he was looking to Barney rather than me.

"Found her down at Jack's downing shots," Barney explained.

"So why is she here?"

"She's shitfaced and doesn't know her way home."

"Well then, c'mon, beautiful, I'll take you to my room." Tool looked down at me with a smirk.

I couldn't help but laugh at this. Tool lifted me up in his arms and carried me to the elevator I'd seen Barney come out of that morning. He then carried me down a short hallway and into a bedroom. It was a pretty plain room, but it wasn't too bad. He set me down on the bed that rested in the center of the room.

"Just stay up here and get some sleep, alright, Sugar?" he explained as if I were a child.

I simply nodded, but it was a good enough answer for him. He left his room, presumably to return back to the soon-to-be Expendables meeting. I carefully slid off the bed and onto the cold floor. I set my cell phone on the floor next to me and enabled the high-tech extras that Trench's hacker, Vertigo, had set up on it. Basically, I had a listening device on my phone that could detect sound through most surfaces. It then took these sounds and recorded them; these recordings were immediately sent to my personal laptop for me to listen to later. The recordings weren't hooked up to any other computer the team had except for mine, so I needn't worry about Trench knowing what I was doing.

I clicked the record button on my phone and waited to hear the rest of the Expendables enter the shop.

"So what's going on?"

**BARNEY ROSS**

"Okay, we need to figure out who this Raven broad is," I explained once everyone got settled.

"Elizabeth R. Creed," Yang corrected, causing me to glare at him.

"Well, Christmas, what does she look like?" Caesar asked.

"Just about my height, a bit shorter. Really short hair, dark hair, but I can't be sure of the color. Tanned skin, covered in tattoos. She smokes and has a limp; other than that, I didn't see her too well," Lee explained, just as he'd told me the night before.

"Great, so we have no clue what she looks like," Toll grumbled.

"Lacy would have pictures, wouldn't she?" Tool suggested.

I nodded and looked to Lee. "Think you can get a picture?" I asked.

Lee sighed. Nope, of course he wouldn't be able to get one. "I don't think so," he answered.

"So, they call her _Ray_," Tool thought aloud. "Barney, didn't Trench used to have a _Sugar Ray _on his team?"

Yang pulled out his laptop instantly. He had a file on there about the Perilous, Trench's team. Included in that file was a list of the team's members.

"I'm not sure if that was her name," I answered, considering it for a moment. "I saw her once, though, on her first day."

"That was sixteen years ago, brother. Don't try to remember what she looked like," Tool told me, as if he had read my mind. Of course that was what I was trying to do. I wanted to know what this woman looked like so we could find her and get it over with.

"Tool, you're a genius!" Yang exclaimed suddenly, bringing me out of my thoughts.

I looked over at the open laptop. There was a blurry black and weight photograph of a woman, but I couldn't make out any features on the woman. Honestly, the only reason I knew this was a woman was because of the curves that only a woman could have. There was no possible way I could identify that person if I ever saw her, though.

Under the picture was the description:

**Alias: Sugar Ray**

**Height: 5-feet, 11-inches**

**Age: NA**

**Ethnicity: Caucasian**

**Eye: Blue**

**Hair: Brunette**

**Comments:**

**-weapons specialist**

**-often speaks Italian when upset/angry**

**-Recognizable Tattoos: dream catcher across back; "77" on heart; _Perilous _tattoo on upper right thigh**

**-Recognizable Scars: above left eyebrow to left nostril (goes through eye, causing impaired vision; noticeable difference in left eye); left side of neck, 3-inches; upper right chest to left collarbone**

**-Other noticeable attributes: sometimes limps on the left leg; this is due to a knee injury attained before joined _the Perilous_**

Yang read the description aloud, and once he finished, Tool dropped his beer to the floor, causing glass and ice cold beer to fly across the room. We all stared at him, confused, but before we could ask questions, we heard noise from upstairs. Tool ran up there faster than I'd seen him move in years. Naturally, we followed. When we got to Tool's room, we found nothing but an open window. The woman was gone.

Suddenly, an engine revved. Loud. We wouldn't have been able to hear an engine that loud unless…

"DOWNSTAIRS!" Lee yelled, running back in the direction we'd just come.

Again, we were too late to catch her. Lee's bike was the one missing, and we ran out of the open garage door in time to see his bike round the corner.


End file.
